


Velvet Noose

by OnlyOneWoman



Series: A Simple Man [9]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: A hint of seduction, And the risks of it, Angst, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Care, Crack Relationships, Crack Treated Seriously, Dungeon, F/F, Friendship, Genderqueer Character, Heartache, I Don't Even Know, I never promised consistancy, Idiots in Love, Longing, Love, Lowbones, M/M, Matelots, Memories, Muldoon is a grumpy sweetheart, Non-Explicit Sex, POV Alternating, Pining, Pirates are bad at feelings, Propaganda, Strangers to Lovers, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Threats, Vane is fucking lazy, Violence, Vulnerability, Vulnerable John Silver, What I'm doing anymore, Worry, because i ruin them, not good ones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-02-01 04:41:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21381673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyOneWoman/pseuds/OnlyOneWoman
Summary: Alright, this... this is a mess and didn't turn out the way I expected at all so... Plenty more characters and POV's, for some fucking reason and yes there is angst, pain, blood and some smut. Honestly, I don't even know how this happened... I blame you, E_A_Phoenix! YOU take care of these rumdrenched looney bin idiots now! XD (Bless you!)
Relationships: Anne Bonny/Mary Read, Billy Bones/Edward "Ned" Low, Edward "Ned" Low/Eliza Marble (past), Muldoon/John Silver
Series: A Simple Man [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1530410
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6





	Velvet Noose

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rising_Phoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rising_Phoenix/gifts).

**Ned Low**  
Maybe she’s aware, maybe not. Maybe she’s giving the orders. No, not these ones. Ned is a brute, a soulless man and it takes one to know one. Miss Guthrie is no brute, she’s only trying to maintain a control she never really had and the guards chosen to keep an eye on him until there’s either some mockery trial or the Fancy crew comes up with something, are neither smart nor careful. Unfortunately, they are also supersticious idiots who’ve listened to far too many ghost stories, just not enough to keep their distance. And the Guthrie woman knows nothing.   
  
At first it’s annoying, the bag mostly, but also the kicks and punches. They’re not meant to kill or dismember and in a sick way it’s a reminder of home. Of Edward senior who rarely used his hands unless he could make something shatter or bleed. The beatings he would hand out whenever his spawn of thieves came home emptyhanded were brutal and mother would try to go between them until she too ended up facing his fists and boots. Ned knows the kind of men these pathetic guards are and he tries to smile at them as often as possible, purely out of spite. Oddly, they spare his teeth.   
  
Ned was born and raised in a cruel world, it’s all he ever knew until meeting Eliza Marbles and violence is the first language he mastered yet one he never spoke with her. It’s what his body was made for, to give and take violence, the pain and the injuries and still rise. Not to heal but to survive, if not for his own satisfaction, so at least as a nuisance to others. And yet, even in this predicament, being chained to a wall, every bone in his body aching and gore stuck on his torso, face and hair, Ned’s thoughts aren’t staying in the presence, but loosing themselves to a serious face, to callous, gentle hands and eyes, blue as the tide, soft as velvet, seeing things Ned didn’t even know were to be seen within him.  
  
Those eyes have threatened him since that first night outside the tavern. The way they sought him out, still are, not satisfied with skin or appearence but searching for more, for all the parts Ned thought weren’t his to give away anymore. As if they all died with Eliza. For a man who doesn’t believe in resurrection, Ned feels far too alive and not because of the chains and the blood, but due to the noose Billy Bones has tied around his heart.  
  
They’re keeping a smelling bag over his head and in the murky dungeon it gets hard to breathe and Ned has been awaiting trials before, so he knows the rations given to him aren’t nearly the normal ones. Water, some miserable excuse for a soup and bred rinds. These guards are, in a way, much like himself, Ned silently admits. They find pleasure in watching a man suffer, only this isn’t a man but a monster. He doesn’t show pain and that’s not what these idiots expected.   
  
Billy has probably left again. It’s the life on the account, after all, and Ned has no right to be either surprised nor disappointed. They’ve not made some goddamn vows, they’re not official matelots and will never be. You don’t take another Captain’s first mate as your matelot, not when you’re the Captain of a different crew. There’s no law or even custom about it, it just doesn’t happen. If you wanna fuck someone from another crew, you either keep it onshore or you transfer. Billy will never do that. He’s loyal and the first man Ned has met in years who comes even close to something called civilised.   
  
_Civilised!_   
  
He smiles through the pain. Billy Bones is loyal, yes, and he’s literate, he’s the son of modern people who was taught how to write while Ned was taught how to steal. Billy is from the common, but Ned is from the gutter. He knows how to read and can write enough to manage, but it’s the first mate who has the words. He’s shy, doesn’t speak much, but they’re there, Ned has felt that since the inn.  
  
_What do you want, Mr. Marbles, or whatever your name is?  
I’m a simple man, Mr. Bones, with simple preferences.  
And yet you’re not satisfied with what the inn has to offer.  
Neither are ye, it seems._  
  
Ned closes his eyes, his usually so shallow emotions have been stirred a little more with every touch, every word, every serious gaze.   
  
_I’m not used to this… Elijah._  
  
As if _he_ was! Ned forces himself to slow down the breaths, he’s had an awful lot of practise to keep his blood still. Father couldn’t stand boys who gave in to impulses. He wanted a band of mercenaries and he got himself one. Richard, Ned’s younger brother, got hanged before Ned took to sea and father hadn’t shed a single tear, only looked over the rest of his pack as if inspecting what goods he had left.   
  
_Ye’re earning yer own keep, lads. Ye come home with nothing, ye get nothing._  
  
Mother would break that rule when she had the chance, would speak softly to Ned and Richard at night over a hidden piece of bread, telling them father was who he was but that she still loved him and prayed for his soul. She used to tell them to be kind to the girls in the alley, to remember she’d once been a girl too and that one day, they’d become husbands and fathers and they’d have to know how to handle women.  
  
That last part, about handling women, she only told Ned and while she never really explained what she meant by that, Ned knew what she _didn’t _mean.   
  
He met Eliza Marble in Boston, she had braids under her bonnet, used to tease him for the way he looked at her when she combed them at night. He never laid a hand on her, not simply because he loved her, but because he just couldn’t. There was no concious decision for that, that’s never been the way Ned has operated, it just came naturally. The gentleness only mother had shown in secret, whatever he’d learned from it belonged to Eliza and then to little Elizabeth and Edward.  
  
With them gone, there’s only been Edward Low senior’s motionless malice left and it has consumed Ned ever since. The spite, the hatred, that bottomless void of nothing, of things that used to be, that had started to come to life and then turned into a scorched and barren desert. It serves him right, probably. He’s not the right creature to ask for the things he can’t take by own hands and now they’re literally chained and empty. Longing doesn’t suit him, but unlike sweet Eliza, Billy Bones is alive and out there and the velvet noose, deceitfully soft like the man’s hands, is pulling tight and Ned hates himself for the weakness he’s carrying within, that has risen from the dead in a new form and has a name of the living, as if Ned still belonged to them.  
  
**Mary Read**  
The woman has been staring at her for a while now, half-hidden in the corner, like a shadow and Mary has stopped looking down her empty cup and instead stares back. The woman sits slouched back at the wall with two men. One of them is rather thin and gangly, talking constantly in the way that doesn’t require answers. That must be Calico Jack Rackham, which means the other man is Charles Vane.  
  
During her short time in Nassau, once healed enough to get to shore, Mary has been inspecting her new territory. Spying and eaves-dropping, father probably would’ve called it, but sometimes the words hold no more meaning than the clothes. Mary is fairly certain that the woman looking at her with a hard yet curious gaze, knew exactly what Mary was as soon as she laid eyes on her.  
  
They keep looking at each other, Rackham and Vane seemingly oblivious to the silent exchange and with the girls at the inn not knowing shit about where Captain Low might be, which means he’s probably not been openly killed or been seen leaving the island, Mary thinks the cruel yet kind man who kept her secret and tended to her wounds might actually be around somewhere.   
  
The woman with the red hair isn’t hard on the eyes. She’s keeping her distance to the girls and they don’t make advancements. Mary is still feeling sore from the assault but there’s no bleeding and she’s not pregrant or sick with syphilis. If she was, it would’ve shown by now. She witnessed enough symptoms as a soldier to know.   
  
Two of the whores are performing in front of a table with men, dancing with each other, touching each others’ breasts and Mary swallows hard, eyes wide opened because she might be a girl of the world compared to when she was married, but she’s never seen two women touching each other like this, openly, in a tavern. She almost chuckles when thinking about the stories she heard while being a simple seaman in the Royal Navy, one of the lowest, and how the quartermaster who was a rather good storyteller, would paint pictures of pirates who would mate with animals and rape any woman coming their way.  
  
How places like Nassau and Tortuga were like hornets nests, filled with the vilest creatures giving in to any carnal lust, even the most unthinkable.   
  
Mary changes her position and hides a grimaze. It still hurts but the vile creature who not only spared her life but kept her secret as well, did a good job with her predicament and Mr. Meeks apparantly was more scared of the risk of his Captain finding Mary with a crew member than of letting her loose in Nassau. He even gave her some coins and clothes, by order from the Captain, along with a gun and a knife.   
  
This is, indeed, a strange place with very strange people and when Mary sees the way the hat clad woman sneaks upstairs, slowly but with a determination in her steps, the big hat shadowing her face and the long coat moving in a way that reveals the presence of a long, thin sword, Mary decides it’s time to combine work with pleasure, empties her cup and gets up.  
  
**Billy Bones**  
The inn usually is the place to go when you need news but not when you need to keep secrets. Billy has seniority but even if that hadn’t been the case, he would’ve left anyway. He’s never broken the rules of seniority before, not once, but it’s like the men can see he’s out of reach for reason and as soon as they set anchor, Billy has a yowl ready, that Joji and Muldoon are assisting with and neither Flint nor anyone else seems to have objections.   
  
Silver, of course, is going with him, along with Muldoon. Joji stays onboard, not in any dire need of breaking seniority and since not even DeGroot makes any noise about it, just shakes his head while muttering something about youths being ruled by their cocks and how more men will die from that than the noose of the English, it seems like it’s an exception that’s accepted. Not that it would matter if it wasn’t.  
  
Billy doesn’t say a word when rowing ashore. His eyes are fixed on the white shore, he’s exhausted from lack of sleep and his nerves are frayed, his usually clear mind in tatters. He doesn’t know that the reason Captain Flint, Gates and DeGroot aren’t making a fuss about this, is due to the fact that they all reckognize the desperation Billy thinks he’s not showing. Not even Silver talks in the yowl, only looking out over the approaching beach while Muldoon leans closer, seemingly absentminded and unconcearned or even unaware of the display of affection.   
  
Silver doesn’t move away or closer, remaining still on the seat but he turns his head slightly, touching Muldoon’s temple with his forehead and Billy has to look away, swearing silently to himself that how ever this ends, he’s gonna repay them – as well as the crew – for the indulgence they somehow have agreed to give him in an hour of need they don’t actually know the source of.  
  
They just repay years of loyalty and, Billy guesses, all the times he foregone his place in line for a brother desperate for news of a sort that just couldn’t wait. He’s never asked for anything in return and that pays off now.   
  
When they finally reach shore, Billy is in the water before the gunner and quartermaster have gotten up from their seats and with a strenght coming from desperation, Billy pulls the yowl in himself, almost making his brothers fall and he looks up, breath too fast.  
  
“I’m sorry, I…”  
  
Silver waves him off.  
  
“Just go. We’ll manage.”  
  
Muldoon nods.  
  
“You go find him, mate. We’ll ask around, alright?”  
  
Billy swallows, feeling his face getting heated despite how pale he probably looks.  
  
“Thank you. I mean, I…”  
“Billy.”  
“Yes?”  
“_Go.”_  
  
**Mary Read**  
_Anne Bonny_. Mary’s blood is rushing in all the right ways, she knows she should be looking but she’s feeling the need as any sailor and the woman brushing up against her has blood and daggers in her eyes, she’s feral, just like Ned Low and it’s only when the hard fingers are suddenly squeezing between her legs, that Mary’s head is catching up with her and she lets out a far too loud whimper of pain.  
  
Bonny stops immediately, concern suddenly furrowing her brows.  
  
“What’s wrong?”  
  
Mary wants to sink through the ground. Not only has she headlessly let herself into a woman’s bed, but she’s managed to forget what an utterly idiotic idea that is and also, she’s forgetting about her real errend. Involuntarily, she pulls her thighs together, curling to a roll from the unexpected pain and Bonny gives her a look, just a fucking _look_, that tells Mary there are no need for an explanation.  
  
Mary scrambles to leave the bed but the sudden touch to the wound was hard and she’s folding into her legs from the pain.  
  
“I’m sorry… Mark or whatever your name is.”  
“Mary. Mary Read.”  
“Mary, huh…”  
“You’re Anne Bonny.”  
  
Bonny is still scowling, but it’s difficult to tell if she’s angry, annoyed or just surprised.  
  
“If you wanted to talk to me, you didn’t need to try and seduce me, girl. What do you want?”  
“Low. I’m… I’m looking for Captain Low.”  
  
Bonny sneers and Mary thinks she doesn’t seem like a woman who smiles in earnest at all.  
  
“Captain Low… What business do you have with that scum? He did _that _to you?”  
  
Mary shakes her head.  
  
“No, he’s the reason I’m still alive. No one knows that… that I’m not a man. Well… and you.”  
  
Anne Bonny huffs at that, but she seems more surprised than angry and not malicious at all.   
  
“Don’t worry about me, girl. I aint much for talking.”  
  
She adjusts her coat.  
  
“But I am a rather good listener and from what I’ve heard, Captain Low has been taken to the dungeons for some kind of attack on Miss Guthrie.”  
  
Mary swallows.  
  
“Captain Low… wouldn’t do that. He doesn’t attack women.”  
  
Now there’s a laugh and Anne Bonny shakes her head.  
  
“Girl, you’ve not been long at sea, have you?”  
  
Mary glares at her.  
  
“Long enough to know the difference between a good story and a good man. Do you have any personal problems with my Captain, Anne Bonny?”  
“None what so ever.”  
“Then maybe, instead of your talented fingers, you could give me a hand?”  
  
Mary smiles but keeps her gaze serious and she knows she’s won a battle when the woman raises her eyebrows, a smirk lurking on her face and the prospect of a challenge glimmering in the green eyes.   
  
**Ned Low**  
“Ye slew my gunner! An’ me whore!”  
  
Gunner? Whore? Ned looks up, blood running in his eyes and he’s getting tired of this game with a pair of idiots who, first of all, wouldn’t last a day as captains and, secondly, are unaware of the fact that a whore belongs to no one but her pimp. This toothless nobody most likely hasn’t enough coin for a hand job, let alone a whore worth slaying.  
  
Ned sighs, the pain comes in waves now and he’s having trouble standing, his folding knees pulling down as he’s loosing his strenght and the cuffs have cut rather deep flesh wounds into his skin. This might be the stupidest predicament Ned has ever found himself in and he still doesn’t have a clue what the fuck this shit is talking about.  
  
“Don’… kill ladies…”  
  
There’s blood coming out in bubbles through his mouth and he spits on the ground. The man grabs his hair and Ned is too far gong to be ashamed of the whimper.  
  
“Ye killed my Rebecca! There were witnesses!”  
“Then why am I not charged?”  
  
This is laughable and in the midst of the pain and very real death threat, Ned can’t help but feeling just a little bit insulted that he’s not here due to any actual offenses when there are so many of them, like a blood dripping trail of fuck you:s to the civilized world. He’s killed and tortured men without remorse, plundered, burned and threatened across the Caribbean waters and yet, here is hangs in chains, hidden in a fucking dungeon because some syphilistic idiot who probably can’t tell north from south, thinks Ned has killed some useless lass.  
  
The idiot is pacing now, frustrated and clearly on the edge, and that’s dangerous. Stupid men in control are easily offended and don’t think ahead. They just act and right now, Ned knows it doesn’t matter that he’s not actually killed or hurt or doesn’t even know a woman named Rebecca. All that matters, is what this raving idiot thinks Ned did or didn’t do. Miss Guthrie, being in the position she is, most likely has other business to attend to.  
  
“Ye’re a killer, Low. A monster! Ye have any idea what she meant to me?!”  
  
Ned looks up, for the first time getting some information, something he could use.   
  
“I don’… kill women, or children.”  
  
He takes a deep breath that hurts his lungs and ribs.  
  
“Had a wife, ye know. An’ a son… I don’ kill women or children, stranger. An’ had ye listened more carefully to the rumors, ye would’ve heard about tha’…”  
“Liar!”  
  
Ned laughs.  
  
“I’m a killer an’ a pirate, I plunder, I burn an’ I feel no remorse when taking the life o’ a man. But whoever… killed yer woman, it wasn’t me, ‘cause I simply… don’… do tha’. Whore or not. I jus’ don’ have it in me.”  
  
**Billy Bones**  
“Low? Why the fuck would _I_ know where he is?”  
  
Vane sounds liked the very idea of him knowing shit about any Captain on this island is ridiculous and Billy swallows. He’s not good at handling this… chaos he’s experiencing now and he sits down in the tent, uninvited. Vane doesn’t seem to care, he’s calm as can be. Billy looks at him.  
  
“He threatened Miss Guthrie, didn’t he?”  
“So?”  
  
Billy makes a frustrated sigh.  
  
“Don’t play games, Vane, it doesn’t fucking suit you. Everyone knows you have a past with her.”  
“And you think I’d waste my time on hunting down Low for _that? _Jesus Christ… Eleanor can manage herself better than most of us. What the fuck’s the matter with you people? Who told you this, Bones?”  
“People are talking.”  
  
Vane raises his eyebrows and then just shakes his head, with an exasperated sigh. He’s comfortably leaned back against a pillow in his private tent, smoking a cigarr and a bottle of something is travelling back and forth his lips. He looks a bit sedated and utterly unimpressed.  
  
“I have no fucking clue where your lover is and I don’t give a fuck either, Bones.”  
  
Billy startles at the word Vane chose and the man snickers.  
  
“Running around like an idiot looking for your matelot doesn’t suit you either. Now get the hell out of here and if I see him and he doesn’t have a death wish, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”  
  
With that, Vane turns around and before Billy’s even left the tent, the Captain is snoring with an open mouth, not even bothering to cover his buck naked ass. And people are calling _Ned_ an animal…  
  
**John Silver**  
“Never seen him like this before… I mean, he’s had encounters before, sure, but…”  
“Encounters?”  
  
John raises his eyebrows at his matelot’s unusual choise of words and Muldoon glares back.  
  
“_Fucks_, then? I’ve known Billy for years, John. Just because you have some kind of… God given access to others thoughts, doesn’t mean you know _everything_.”  
“Well, you could always tell me about it.”  
  
At that, Muldoon huffs and it’s far too akin to the snort of a high and mighty lady, John must force down a laughter. He’s not Billy, ready to tear down heaven and earth for someone, but John cares deeply for his matelot and that’s more than enough.   
  
Looking for the lost Captain turns out to be a frustrating endeavor leading nowhere and soon John’s leg starts hurting too much which Muldoon, being the observant asshole he is, sees and it’s straight away to the inn and a soft bed, with Idelle smiling at them when closing the door. John is only mildly annoyed for the way his matelot simply runs him over like this. It’s strange and a tad bit awkward, but not unpleasant as long as it’s kept hidden.  
  
More often than not, the stump is causing John a lot more pain than he’ll show or even admit and only two people are allowed to touch him: Muldoon and, when it’s necessary, Dr. Howell. Idelle is good too, though, knowing by now what John and Muldoon need and will pay well for, so the room is equipped with water and soap, oils and lotion.   
  
John smiles and lets his eyelids fall when Muldoon lifts him to bed. It doesn’t make him feel weak now, he’d do the same thing had their roles been reversed and the nimble hands work the peg off, accompanied with the usual huffs and curses, the scolding and annoyance that is Muldoon’s way of looking after him.   
  
“You do know Dr. Howell will chop off another three fucking inches if you don’t tend to this properly, you fucking ass? I can’t believe you’re the quartermaster, God have mercy on us all… You know, I should just let it rot!”  
  
John listens silently to his lover working out his emotions with whatever words he needs, without answering or defending himself. Muldoon needs this, needs an outlet and for some reason, yelling at John’s lack of care for the stump, does it for him. It also makes the tenderness bearable, the way Muldoon’s hands are so soft and attentive when handling the wound, scraping puss carefully off the edges and drying it before using a linen cloth drenched in spirits to clean it properly.  
  
It hurts and so it should, but Muldoon is done scolding and John turns his face away for the last part of what’s almost become a ritual, with his lover applying aloe lotion on the burning stump and the pain gets easier to breathe through. It’s one of few moments when both his legs feel tolerable, as Muldoon starts digging his blunt, callous fingers into the thigh of the stump, working out the cramps there before starting on the other, the one that is carrying more weight than before and the hip that feels perpetually crooked.   
  
John whimpers from the good pain, Muldoon’s hands are his saving grace and he looks up at the man.  
  
“Don’t think I can manage the fucking today.”  
“No shit? You’re laying down, Mr. Quartermaster, not fucking moving.”  
  
John laughs, Muldoon often makes him laugh and while it’s mostly John who has his cock in Muldoon and not the other way around, they do switch on occasion. Usually when Muldoon has had enough of John’s lack of attendance to the stump.  
  
It’s been a while since they fucked properly. The stump makes it more difficult onboard and there’s only so much you want to let the crew see. Just because they may not judge, John doesn’t want a fucking audience.  
  
As painful as the treatment of the stump is, just as sweet is the burn of Muldoon’s slick fingers working their way inside him. It took time before John stopped associating being fucked with being controlled. Muldoon doesn’t want, doesn’t need to control him, he’s a simple soul who’s not ashamed of what he likes and in this room, the one with the least risk of being seen or heard, John can relax back into his lover’s arms and be filled. Muldoon enters him with an ease that makes John smile and he scoots up his stump to the pillow for some rest. He feels arms coming around him, holding him steady, not out of pity, but because there’s a want for it. For him, despite his crippled form.  
  
Muldoon fucks him slow and gentle, not because he’s afraid of hurting him, but to keep from getting it too heated too soon. John shudders at the way the gunner’s hands hold him hard and tight, how he thrusts hard against his sweet spot without hesitation, without wondering if John can take it or not and the harshness of it, combined with the heated breaths and beardy kisses onto his neck, makes John forget what he’s lacking. For a long, deliciously sweet and burning moment, he’s whole.  
  
**Ned Low**  
He’s broken. Not that there was much of whole thing in him before, but there are definitely less of them now. He doesn’t feel sorry for himself, he doesn’t know how and even if he did, there’s no reason to pity him. Quite the opposite.  
  
For three years he’s been walking and running, sailing and raiding through a mist. Things have been clouded, every feeling apart from the rage numbed out to nothing. A shallow ground full of holes where there must’ve been parts of an actual man at some point. Where they’ve gone, Ned doesn’t know and doesn’t care about.  
  
Pride goes before the fall, so it’s said, but Ned doesn’t feel pride over anything, never has and his main fall wasn’t one of blood and rage, of pillage and fire, but for a man who would hold him like something of value.   
  
Ned laughs and the echo of it sounds as hollow as the place in his heart that almost got filled again. He’s been tying this noose for himself by daring to live once more.   
  
How perfectly, ironically apt.


End file.
